


apples may keep doctors away but teachers are a different matter

by dier1irious



Category: Men’s Football RPF
Genre: Drabble, M/M, Oops, kind of, no actual action but plenty of references
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-20
Updated: 2019-08-26
Packaged: 2020-09-19 04:29:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20325106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dier1irious/pseuds/dier1irious
Summary: classes have finished for the day and three TOTALLY fine, NOT sexually frustrated professors discuss their weekend plans





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> came from a throwaway comment from justintrimberlake on tumblr. now if you’ll excuse me I’m off to yeet myself into a nearby pond or something

‘Rough night, Vertonghen?’ asks Eric as he walks towards the coffee machine.

Jan doesn’t look up from his laptop but his eyebrows flick upwards in a silent mutter of ‘don’t you know it’ that makes Kane chuckle from the other end of the room. 

‘You’re one to talk, Dier, you think I didn’t hear about your late lockup request last week?’ 

Jan raises his eyebrows again, this time in an interrogatory motion towards Eric, who pinks a little at the tips of his cheekbones but only shrugs non-committedly. 

‘Who was it this time?’

‘This time?’

‘Oh, Eric’s had his pick of them, haven’t you,’ Kane smirks. ‘When we were on study abroad in Portugal-’

‘Let’s just day I know my way around Lisbon.’ Eric cuts Harry off before he can continue and smirks into the coffee machine, his back to the two professors behind him. 

‘Student?’ Jan asks, sipping on some kind of lemon and ginger thing.

There’s silence from Eric and only the coffee machine sees his guilty smirk widen.

‘What? Really?’ Harry gapes with interest, leaning forward in his chair.

‘It’s not like either of you are writing on clean slates.’ Eric rolls his eyes, leaning against the table to glare meaningfully at Harry.

‘Yeah, it’s one thing to meet in a bar, it’s something else to change a grade for a blowjob.’ Jan jibes, looking pointedly at Harry.

‘A bar, was it?’ Harry quickly deflects.

‘Bar, bar car park, what’s the difference.’ Jan shrugs.

‘The difference is we’re not getting fucked by our foreign exchange students.’ Eric smirks into his coffee, looking down into the mug to avoid Jan’s outraged eyes.

‘What do you- I’m not-‘ Jan splutters, panicking. ‘How did you know?’

Eric taps his left collarbone wordlessly and Jan looks down to his own where his pale skin is adorned with a dark purple bruise, just visible above his collar. ‘Fuck! Doesn’t mean he-’

‘No, but the walk does.’ Harry grins. ‘I know that walk.’

‘Trademark of yours, eh?’ Eric winks.

‘Not so fast, not so fast,’ Harry holds up a hand in protest but Eric shakes his head with glee.

‘Imagine bringing your mum to prizegiving and walking across the stage like you’ve got a stick up your arse.’ Jan laughs and Eric joins in like they’re their students’ ages. 

‘Harry told me we might be getting a repeat performance tomorrow if he scores against Exeter?’ Eric smirks. 

‘So it’s little Winksy?’ Kane’s eye’s gleam. 

Eric rolls his eyes in defeat.

‘Winks?’ Jan asks.

‘Freckled, twinky kid? Second year sports science?’ 

‘He’s not twinky.’ Eric goes to protest further but evaluates any kind of argument and realises that actually, yes, Harry is rather twinky, he supposed.

Realisation dawns on Jan’s face. ‘Second year? That long already?’

‘Looks about fourteen,’ Harry snorts. ‘Nonce.’ 

‘He’s 20, and actually very mature.’

‘Yeah, clever boy. Knows the difference between A and D.’ Jan smirks at Harry. ‘Speaking of, haven’t you got ‘papers to mark,’ Kane?’ Harry rolls his eyes at the violent quotation marks Jan makes with his fingers.

‘At least I can stand up to go and get them.’

Eric whistles low. ‘Well, have fun tomorrow, Harry. Hope he scores for your sake.’

‘Yeah, look like letting off a little steam would do you good.’ Jan nods, easing himself up not-too-subtly.

‘At least I’ll be getting some, which is more than you can vouch for in the next - what, week, Jan?’ Harry asks, making his way to the door with a grin.

‘Ha ha,’ Jan grumbles. ‘Paulo’s coming over in the morning, actually, so you can both fuck off.’ 

Eric grins and closes the door behind him with a gleeful ‘Winks is naked in my office, right now.’


	2. chinese takeaway

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> inspired by real life events. this has all happened to me ur welcome xx

The whole thing is really Ben’s fault. Well, Ben, and Harry’s mum.

Ben had been the one to suggest study abroad. He was always good at German GCSE, and when the poster first went up on the physical studies notice board he’d raced over like it had sweets attached to it or something. ‘Imagine it, boys!’ he’d grinned. ‘A whole term! Doing whatever we wanted without Poch breathing down our necks!’ 

‘He’d probably come with us to supervise Harry.’ Madders rolled his eyes. 

Ben let out a loud guffaw and, spotting Maguire across the corridor, clearly heading into the wrong lecture hall despite it being their third term there, quickly dropped the subject to yell something explicit after him.

In fact, it wasn’t brought up at all until the summer holiday when Ben and Dele came down to visit Harry at his parents’ house in London. Harry’s mum’s eyes opened wide when Ben brought up the subject at dinner one night and Harry groaned inwardly. He’d never hear the end of this.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to go abroad - he loved going on holiday, Benidorm with his parents, Zante after A levels, abuela’s house every other Christmas - it was just the hassle of getting there. Harry liked uni, he liked the swing of things, and how simple everything was. Friends only ever a hall away, football every day of the week, UNiDAYS discounts on Domino’s any day he fancied it - life was easy. Hauling himself off for a term away from everything seemed like effort, and while Harry carried himself with the enthusiasm of a Labrador on steroids, he was about as organised and motivated as any other first-year sports science student at a university that people had to google when you told them it was Russell Group. Not very. 

So he’s still finding it hard to believe that on the first of October he’s sitting in a classroom labelled ‘Elementary Chinese.’

Because somehow, somehow, in spite of all their talks of the Bernabeu or Parc des Princes, or even one of the German ones, Harry can never pronounce them right, Ben had roped him into study abroad in Shanghai. Shanghai. Like, across the world Shanghai. Definitely not accessible via Eurostar Shanghai. 5000 miles from the nearest Wetherspoons Shanghai. That one. Him. In Shanghai.

Dele couldn’t get over himself when he first heard the plan. 

‘You know where Shanghai is, don’t you, Winksy?’ he’d spluttered over his beer that he was definitely only drinking to impress the Spanish exchange sitting at the booth next to them. ‘It’s, like, far, and they don’t speak English.’

Ben snorted and Harry pouted into his daiquiri. ‘Fuck off, just cause you’re stuck on your own with Kane for a term.’

‘You wish you were stuck on your own with Kane.’ Dele smirked. The boys groaned and Harry rolled his eyes, trying to push away drunken thoughts of the surprisingly enigmatic Professor Kane. ‘You got to learn Chinese or something?’

‘Basic stuff, yeah.’ Ben nodded. ‘Just twice a week, evening lessons.’

Harry looked over at Ben in surprise. This was news to him. He actually didn’t know that much about their trip, figured his mum would have a letter or something. 

‘Know who you’ve got?’ Dele continued. ‘One of the Spanish teachers does Chinese, I think. Proper fit.’

‘Nah, don’t think so.’ Ben shook his head. ‘It’s a Chinese teacher. Dr... something Chinese.‘ 

Dele scoffed at the lack of detail but pressed no further. Paulo - that was the Spanish exchange’s name, Paulo - had walked past them to try and find the bathroom, and come back to ask his exchange, Juan - or as Dele had just named him, ‘twinky little prick’ - but was intercepted before he got there and pushed into the deep end of conversation with Dele before he could do anything to save himself.

And so he finds himself in preparatory language classes, because despite taking what his teachers had called ‘a degree you could get in a park,’ Harry Winks is going to reach an intermediate level of spoken and written Mandarin Chinese in three months. That’s something that happens now. 

Dr Jiao - that’s her name, Jiao, ‘like you call for your friend Jack and fall over, like Jack, J-ow, I stub my toe’ - Dr Jiao is a sweetheart. She’s 68, a retired Economics professor from Hong Kong, and really smells like Harry’s godmother’s bathroom, which he tells Ben without meaning to and is mercilessly ribbed about for the next three weeks. They see her twice a week, about 10 in the class, all girls, who show a relieving lack of interest in Harry and Ben, and their Chinese understanding grows bit by bit - admittedly, they’re small bits, but they’re growing. 

But right now it’s 9pm on a Sunday, training doesn’t start until 10 tomorrow morning, and nothing about Dr Jiao is encouraging Harry to do his homework. He has 15 characters to memorise before his class tomorrow evening, and ‘it’s not even a real class, what’s she gonna do, Del, tell me I’m crap? I’ve got Ben for that.’ Maybe he’ll study in the morning, if he’s awake, but missing those 15 characters really isn’t going to hurt much. She’ll tut at him and move on to check Bethany’s. Harry can handle that. So he makes himself a cup of tea, pulls on his pyjamas, reads a few chapters of Order of the Phoenix, and falls asleep.

It’s 9.48 when he wakes up, absolutely ruining his chances of any morning study, and the day passes quickly. Lunch is early, then a lecture, then the gym, then a shower, careful to avoid the cheerfully intimidating gaze of Paulo Gazzaniga, who seems to have taken up residence in their gym and is just as well-endowed as Dele had so casually described. Harry heads to Chinese class with wet, tousled hair, yesterday’s t-shirt and joggers with a curry stain he forgot about last weekend.

He’s greeted by a floppy piece of paper stuck to the door with two pieces of blue tack, still warm from the printer, reading:

‘Due to scheduling conflicts Dr Jiao has had to resign from this class. Classes will continue as normal with Professor Dier. Please direct any queries to the MFL office thank you.’ Harry feels like there should be some punctuation between ‘office’ and ‘thank you,’ but he nearly failed his English language GCSE so it’s probably not his place to say. 

He shrugs to himself and takes his normal seat, next to Ben in the front left hand corner. Ben’s not there yet, though, and Harry takes out his class notes from the last lesson to remind himself of whatever the fuck they were talking about. Professor Dying, or whatever her name is, will have no clue about the homework, and Harry breathes a big sigh of relief to himself. He notices Bethany eying him suspiciously and reckons the sigh was a little too loud, but shrugs internally and opens his book. Luckily, he hears the door open, and turns around to rib Ben for being late, but that’s not Ben, that’s not Ben at all, that’s-

Professor Dier walks in, and Harry just wants to, like, die.

He’s built like a mountain, skies above six feet, with shoulders like an ox and a chest that fills out his jersey like he’s been sculpted. His face is framed with a thick beard and hair just shorter on his head than his jawline, which Harry almost wants to reach out and touch. He’s not quite confident, no swagger, no brazen jaunt to his strides, but he carries himself with poise and elegance that turns Harry into a puddle. He lays his folder down on the front desk and looks down at his class almost shyly, and Harry reckons that his classmates must all be lesbians or psychopaths not to be fainting there and then. He’s more than a little hot under the collar himself. The classroom is quiet and the wandering god braces his hands on the desk

‘Good evening, I’m Professor Dier,’ he - well, it’s not stammering, but there’s a sheepish smile on his face that would be sweet if he didn’t look like he could crush all the Bethanys in the class with a flick of a wrist. ‘Sorry to hear about Dr Jiao, but I grew up in China and I’ve done all my HSKs so I’m qualified to teach as much as you need to know for your - study abroad, is it?’ He looks at Harry as if Harry knows what the fuck is going on and Harry nods like a dog on a dashboard. Professor Dier could have been asking for crack and Harry wouldn’t have changed his answer. ‘Nice. Well, Shanghai is really beautiful.’ Harry has to be hallucinating when he finds Professor Dier’s eyes on him for that last word. He has to be, he has to be. ‘It’s a bit far-flung from what I’m used to, you know, I actually teach Spanish and Portuguese-‘

Aha! So this is the fit teacher Dele was talking about! Harry’s eyes widen internally and he’s losing himself with mental images of Professor Dier in his abuela’s house on the Costa Del Sol when the door creaks open. They all turn to look and Ben is grimacing at the door. He looks blankly at Harry, then at their new teacher, then back at Harry, then more apologetically at Dier. 

‘Sorry, sir, traffic?’

Professor Dier smiles but his eyebrows crinkle in amused confusion

‘How far away do you live?’ he asks, leaning casually against the desk. His jeans - no, they’re not jeans, is that corduroy? - pull slightly at his hips and it’s all Harry can do to look back at his book. 

Ben stammers the beginning of an excuse but Professor Dier just shakes his head. 

‘Just see it doesn’t happen again. Well, I suppose this is your seat here, is it, next to-’

‘Harry.’ Harry smiles. A question he knows the answer to, and it’s his first! An excellent start. 

‘Harry?’ 

‘What?’ Harry blurts out, sounding like an idiot. 

‘Harry Winks.’ Ben provides, helpful to the end.

Professor Dier turns to Harry with a smirk on his face. Harry can feel a blush burning a trail across his cheeks. 

‘Does he now?’ Harry doesn’t know what that’s meant to imply, he just knows that the low voice and almost cocky smile and the palpable amusement of his Professor are making him melt. 

Ben grins. ‘Oh, yeah, sir, all the time, Sir Winksalot, we call him, don’t we Sophie-’

Ben’s having the time of his life and Harry wants to crawl back into the womb. ‘Come on, Harry, give us a wink,’ Harry doesn’t know what’s happening, just that somewhere on his phone is a photo of Ben dressed as a sexy Japanese schoolgirl, and the minute this class is over he’s going to send it to Madders. 

‘I’m sure we can leave that for after class, can’t we, Harry,’ Professor Dier smiles, with laughter toying at his lips. Harry breathes out an internal sigh and looks hastily down at his book in case he’s giving accidents heart-eyes. ‘Anyway, Dr Jiao told me you’ve just finished unit 5, so I’m going to start with a little test.’

Harry’s stomach drops. He knows nothing. He doesn’t know a single thing. He hasn’t even looked at the characters since the lesson before, and that was just the normal ‘box, line, two boxes, ooh that one looks a bit like a boob haha.’ 

What’s worse is the way Dier walks around them while they write. He reads out words - ‘zhīdào’ and ‘lóu’ and ‘shítáng,’ which is appropriate because Harry’s shitting himself - and looks down as they write. Harry’s paper remains blank. He remembers that ‘hào’ has a box in it, so he draws a little box at the top of the square in his book, but stops. Dier is standing right there, watching his pen *not* move. Then Harry makes the mistake of looking up, and Dier’s just there, looking down at him, a kind of smirk on his face as Harry fades into a mist of embarrassment.

In fact, Dier cuts the test short because so few of them actually studied, which is nice for Harry. He still comes last but instead of ‘floor,’ Sophie 3 wrote ‘penis’ so at least he’s held onto a little dignity.

It doesn’t make much difference for the rest of the lesson, though, and with every passing minute Harry wills for the ground to swallow him up.

They move onto unit 6, describing each other. It’s not hard, relatively simple vocabulary, and some of the characters aren’t impossible once you get the hang of them. It’s just ‘I am,’ ‘he is,’ over and over, and Dier gets them to write descriptions of each other in Pinyin then read them out. 

Luckily, when Dier comes over to them, he picks on Ben. ‘This is my friend Ha Ri,’ he begins. ‘Harry is 19. Harry lives in London. Harry is a student. Harry is clever and piaoliang.’ 

Harry blushes at this last one and his eyes go wide at Ben, who smiles airily back. Professor Dier lets out a low chuckle.

‘Hěn piàoliang.’ he repeats. ‘It’s good grammar, no mistakes to pick up on. And your tonality’s nice, too. But piàoliang means beautiful, or pretty. It’s only used for women. You need to use shuài, instead.’ he says methodically. ‘Although, I guess-’

He smirks and shrugs carelessly, then moves onto the next table. 

Harry’s eyes are glazed over and when he blinks, Ben’s staring at him like he’s just seen an alien.

‘Professor Dier just called you pretty, mate.’ Ben giggles.

Harry sits back in his chair triumphantly, his heart racing, head swimming, trousers a little bit tight all of a sudden.

‘Yes. Yes, he fucking did.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is crack btw. this is absolute rubbish. im doing this for the lols and to distract myself from MY chinese teacher ur welcome x


End file.
